World Junior Curling Championships 2011 Day 3 Men

In an action-packed fifth session of men’s round-robin play on Monday evening at the World Junior Curling Championships in Perth, Scotland, the Czech Republic’s Lukas Klima recorded his first win, beating China by 6-5, while Norway and Sweden picked up another win each to sit tied on four wins and one loss at the top of the standings.

Swedish Skip Oskar Eriksson Photo: WCF/Richard Gray

Canada broke their losing run in the morning session with a 9-2 win over USA. After that game, Skip Braeden Moskowy said, “so that’s what winning feels like, I’d forgotten. I’m happy and relieved. That was a pretty frustrating start but we just have to keep building. It’s not like we’re playing badly, we’ve been unfortunate and missed a few key shots, but that’s the real Team Canada, for sure”.

In the evening Moskowy beat a three man Scottish side 10-5. The Scottish men have been battling illness as well as their opponents as they strive to stay in the medal hunt. On Sunday, third player Colin Dick fell ill with a stomach bug. On Monday morning, it was skip John Penny’s turn, but his teammates went out to beat Denmark 7-5. By the evening alternate Jay McWilliam was ill and Dick was back in action as Skip as Penny remained out of action.

After the game against Canada, Dick said, “that was tough. We all turned up and gave it 100% effort, but on the night it just wasn’t enough”.

China, skipped by Jihui Huang, continued good progress with a 9-6 win over Peter de Cruz’s Swiss defending champions on Monday morning. But on Monday evening, the Czech Republic – without a win so far – proved too strong, and led throughout before a well-swept final draw gave Lukas Klima his first win, at 6-5.

Afterwards, an elated Klima said, “we have been struggling with reading the ice and with our right turn draw. We lost four matches in a row and it was terrible. So finally we’ve won and we’re happy of course. We decided to play a little more offensively against China and put them under pressure and it worked”.

Norway’s Steffen Mellemseter had a mixed day, following up a 5-8 loss to Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson with a 9-5 win over Finland’s Iiro Sipola. After the second game he said, “China have just lost to the Czech Republic. They’ll be hungry for a win so we will have to be sharp tomorrow. We came into this event with the goal of making the playoffs”.